Virtually everyone in the port and shipping industry agrees that extra terminal capacity is badly needed in northern Europe. But huge amounts of time and money still have to be spent persuading governments of the urgency in meeting this demand. Developing large new container terminals remains a test of endurance. If financial constraints were not enough, environmental objections from local people and their government representatives have grown into formidable obstacles.<\/p>\n
The region’s capacity crunch was aptly demonstrated by Dave Appleton, president of APL Europe, at last year’s TOC Europe conference. Appleton said terminal capacity in Europe at the moment is at a premium. An exercise by the New World Alliance regarding terminal selection for a new Asia-Europe service found that despite using fewer vessels than usual and only two direct port calls, there was a limited choice of ports, and restricted availability of terminals within those ports. “In one major port, we were not able to put the ships into the same terminal we currently use for our other services.<\/p>\n
In the other, we took the last available berth window, and also face draft restrictions until late 2005, ” he lamented.<\/p>\n
“Despite most of the terminals having expansion plans over the next few years, based on our recent experience with moderate-sized ships, I would certainly question whether they will be sufficient to handle the increases in volume and ship size which are on the way.<\/p>\n
And this is without considering the impact of EU enlargement or the rapidly growing trade with Russia.”<\/p>\n
Appleton did not blame the terminal operators. “Those who I talk to regularly are all keen to invest in further development. However, it may be time to call for greater support from the EU and national governments.”<\/p>\n
Given this scramble for reliable berth space, it was no surprise that in November last year Cosco Pacific opted to take a 25% stake in P&O Ports _530m Antwerp Gateway project. This comprises the east side of the new Deurganckdok facility. The deal reduced P&OP’s stake of 67.5% to 42.5% with the other shareholders being P&O Nedlloyd (25%) and Duisport (7.5%).<\/p>\n
Cosco justified the investment by saying its own forecast for Antwerp showed the port could experience an average growth rate of 10% a year for the next 15 years. “Strong growth in the past has left the existing terminals in Antwerp close to capacity and future growth as forecast by Cosco further confirms the imminent need to expand the port and its handling capacity. The Antwerp Project will thus be expected to alleviate the current capacity constraints and absorb the future growth in traffic.<\/p>\n
For the lead developer, P&O Ports, winning half the Deurganckdok was an important coup. Having entered Antwerp in 1999 with the acquisition of a general cargo and container facility, it applied for a concession covering about one quarter of the available space in the Deurganckdok so as to have a presence outside the Antwerp locks.<\/p>\n
But, over the following 18 months, it managed to persuade the influencing parties the best interests of competition and efficiency would be served by splitting the facility in half, otherwise PSA’s Belgian subsidiary Hesse-Noord Natie (HNN) would have had the lion’s share of river business.<\/p>\n
“We faced the prospect of not being able to make our mark properly as the new face in Antwerp, ” explains Roger Roels, regional director Europe & Africa. “But we were able to present a convincing argument to the port authority and the Belgian government, being responsible for spending public money, that awarding two equal concessions was in the best interests of the port and its customers.”<\/p>\n
Of Cosco’s involvement, Roels makes the comment that P&O Ports considered it prudent to commence operations with a customer that would bring significant volume to the terminal from the start, “and as we have partnered Cosco in a number of terminals around the world, it made sense to invite them into the consortium.”<\/p>\n
The project is on target for its first handling in July, although the official opening ceremony will not take place until September.<\/p>\n
In the first phase of development, Duerganckdok East will have an annual capacity of 1.4mTEUs, rising to 3.5m on completion. The western side, operated by HNN, will be able to handle 1.125mTEUs initially, rising to over four million on completion. Eddie Teh, Group CEO of PSA, said winning the concession for HNN was timely given the robust growth in container volumes at Antwerp, a trend that shows no sign of slowing down. Container volume handled in the port as a whole rose 11.4% in 2004, passing the 6mTEU mark for the first time.<\/p>\n
SAEFTHINGEDOK “INEVITABLE” Next in line for Antwerp could be the Saefthingedok further downstream from Deurganckdok. The plan has not yet been approved, but port insiders claim that the project is “inevitable” if the growth rates turn out as forecast. This could provide an opening for Maersk parent AP Moller which failed to get a foothold on Duerganckdok, but is known to want permanent space in the port. However, the Saefthingedok would generate just as much controversy as its near neighbour, as the nearby village of Doel would effectively disappear from the map.<\/p>\n
At Rotterdam, the demand for additional space has been made clear in the past year: container throughput rose 16% (in TEU terms), to a total of 8.3m. A port spokesman attributed the increase to rapidly growing trade in Central and South America, particularly Brazil, (an increase of some 40%) and China (over 30%). In 2004, this country overtook the USA as the second biggest container trading partner for Rotterdam (the UK remains number one).<\/p>\n
In the second half of last year a start was made on the extension to the Shortsea Terminal in Eemhaven, adding some 250,000TEUs of capacity, while in December, the European Commission gave the green light to the development of Euromax, the joint venture between Europe Container Terminals (ECT), and P&O Nedlloyd (PONL) which is slated to have an annual capacity of 3mTEUs.<\/p>\n
However, Rotterdam is ensuring that the port’s main terminal operator, ECT, retains a stake in its new developments. The EC noted this but concluded that the creation of the terminal “would not significantly impede effective competition”. Although, Euromax (which is scheduled to come on stream in 2008) “will increase the number of terminals controlled by ECT in Rotterdam, ” the EC argued that this would not substantially alter the current position of ECT vis-a-vis its main competitors, who are also expanding their terminal capacity to meet growing demand in Northern European ports.<\/p>\n
“By acquiring joint control over Euromax, PONL follows a general industry trend of carriers investing in container terminals”, added the EC. “Euromax will not lead to vertically-related markets being closed off?.After the entry into service of the new Euromax terminal, which will represent less than 10% of the capacity in the northern European market, container shipping lines will still have enough capacity from other terminals at their disposal.”<\/p>\n
The new terminal will have a quay length of 1,800 metres, a draught of 19,65 metres and a surface of 100ha (which can all be extended in a second phase). Work will begin in the first half of 2005 and should be completed by the end of 2008.<\/p>\n
However, the other planned expansion project – the giant Maasvlakte 2 – has run into one obstacle after another. With construction costs estimated to be over ?2.5 billion, Maasvlakte 2 will comprise about 1,000ha of surface area, effectively adding some 20% to the port’s total size.<\/p>\n
The latest setback came in January when the Dutch High Court rejected the port’s environmental compensation-package. The Court ruled the proposals must be adjusted and resubmitted for judgment.<\/p>\n
Rotterdam port alderman Wim van Sluis believes the financial damage and delay might be reasonable, but this assumes that the adjusted environmental compensation master-package is accepted quickly. If not, and a further delay ensues, then the financial calculations on which the project is based could be affected significantly. But van Sluis still believes construction could start by March 2006 as planned.<\/p>\n
Dutch transport minister Karla Peijs is confident that an adjusted environmental package, which will meet the Court’s objections, can still be presented to Parliament this April. The second Maasvlakte will be completed as planned in 2011, she told parliament, adding that the rejection of the proposed environmental compensation scheme should not obstruct the time frame. In the meantime, preparations, like tendering for the land reclamation, will continue at their current pace, so infrastructure work can start later this year or early 2006, she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Both Rotterdam and Antwerp are investing heavily in much needed container capacity, but the struggle to convince government of the required urgency has been long and hard. Neil Madden reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":6639,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-6638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6640,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6638\/revisions\/6640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6638"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=6638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}